It 's graduation day and professor Jonathan Jansen strolls around the campus of the University of the Free State . Every now and then he stops to greet his gown-clad students , standing out amid a crowd of beaming parents and proudly grinning teachers .

As rector of the formerly all-white educational institution in Bloemfontein , South Africa , Jansen is about to use his graduation ceremony speech to teach his students one last lesson .

`` I urge you , in a country where there 's still a lot of rage , never respond by rage , respond through reason and you will have gotten not just a degree , but an education , '' says Jansen , looking into the eyes of his students .

Jansen , the first black dean of education at the University of the Free State , is one of South Africa 's leading academics and intellectuals .

Throughout his long and esteemed educational career , which has taken him from teaching biology in high school classrooms to leading one of South Africa 's premier learning institutions , Jansen has been doing everything he can to keep education uppermost in the minds of his students .

`` The way out of poverty is through learning and those basic values I have carried with me throughout my leadership , '' says Jansen , who is not only an academic but has a wider audience as author , newspaper columnist and the president of the South African Institute of Race Relations .

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The son of a preacher , Jansen was born in Cape Flats , a violent , gang-infested area on the fringes of Cape Town . Life was tough for the future educator , coming of age in a country plagued by apartheid -- he says that growing up as a black boy in Cape Flats , there was a `` greater chance '' of going to prison than going to university .

But despite the disadvantages of his surroundings , Jansen believes he thrived , thanks largely to the example set by his parents -- he described them as `` Old Testament figures -- my father being Abraham , my mother being Sarah . ''

`` Here you had parents that raised you in a bubble of decency , of this is what you do and do n't do , this is the direction out of poverty , '' he says .

Even though his parents ' families were both materially dispossessed under Apartheid , Jansen says his father and mother raised their children with a strong sense of not being bitter , of being generous to those who are poor and of living a life `` without respect for color . ''

`` That helped us enormously , '' he says , `` so as I looked outside I could see people killing each other , I witnessed the rape of women , I saw horrible things happening around me , but it was as if it did not happen because in this bubble that Abraham and Sarah raised us , there was an understanding of yourself that was unshakeable -- central to that was education . ''

Passionate about the transformative power of knowledge , Jansen holds strong opinions about the state of education in South Africa .

He argues that years of maladministration left the country with a failing state education system . He is also regularly heard lambasting the country 's low teaching standards , which allow students in some cases to pass exams with as little as 30 % .

`` It 's odd for me because it 's like we do n't get it that in a modern interconnected economy you better be up there playing with the best , '' he says . `` I take this to be another symptom of how we 've succumbed to the apartheid message that we ca n't , that we 're inferior , that we need to beg for participation and that does much more damage than any politician can imagine . ''

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A firm believer of the society 's responsibility to insist on a qualitative education system , Jansen , a Fulbright scholar , assumed his current role at the University of the Free State in 2009 after the institution faced controversy over racism and racial integration .

In 2008 , a video surfaced of four white students at the university urging at least five black housekeepers to eat what appeared to be urine-tainted beef stew . The incident sparked national outcry and shed light over South Africa 's racial integration problems .

Citing reconciliation `` on a deeply divided campus , '' Jansen decided to invite the students to return to the university and resume their studies , regardless of their legal consequences .

`` We decided ... to offer to the boys an institutional message of forgiveness and acceptance , that they could come back in and participate in a process of reconciliation with the people that they had hurt . ''

The students were fined after pleading guilty to deliberately injuring another person 's dignity , but they rebuffed Jansen 's invitation to return to the university .

Jansen was roundly criticized for that gesture , which only served to contribute to his reputation for being outspoken .

`` If in the process of forgiving and reconciling , we enable other transformations to take place , which is exactly what happened , then that is a better way to go than the thirst -- the understandable thirst let me say -- for vengeance , '' he says .

Back at the graduation ceremony , Jansen 's moral code of reconciliation over retribution returns once again .

`` I do n't care what else you 've learned at the University of the Free State , '' he tells the graduates , `` but you know this is a university that in the world is regarded as a place that chooses reconciliation over revenge , that chooses compassion over striking back , that chooses mercy over retaliation . ''

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Professor Jonathan Jansen is one of South Africa 's top academics

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He is the rector of the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein

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Jansen is passionate about teaching his moral code : reconciliation over retribution

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He is also an author , columnist and the president of the South African Institute of Race Relations